Electrocution risk from illegal grow ops

Alberta Grow-Op Power Theft exposes illegal taps to underground lines powering marijuana cultivation, risking fires, electrocution, and energized yards across Edmonton area communities, as police raids target drug-trafficking rings and commercial-grade equipment.

Neighbours in eight Edmonton communities are still coming to terms with the risks they were unknowingly facing, including the risk of electrocution, after police busted eight marijuana grow-ops around the city.

Investigators say members of the criminal organization made illegal modifications to the electrical lines to the houses, creating the risk of fire, including examples like an electrical plant fire reported elsewhere, and the possibility of electrifying nearby yards, or even people.

In the one-day sweep, police seized $5.6 million worth of marijuana plants in properties in Edmonton, Sherwood Park, Fort Saskatchewan, Spruce Grove, Strathcona County, and Parkland County.

Insp. Kevin Galvin with Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams said in nearly all the houses members of the criminal organization illegally tapped into the city's underground power lines, a practice that has drawn scrutiny from external investigators in other utility cases.

They then used the electricity to run the commercial grade air conditioners, lights and pumps necessary to keep their plants alive.

But those electrical cheats can cause fires and may send dangerous electrical currents through nearby yards, effectively creating dangerous ground for neighbours, Galvin said.

"There is a possibility that it will energize the yard so, yes, under the right set of environmental conditions people who are on the yard can be subjected to electrical shock," he said.

Geoff Manderscheid, who lives next door to one of the homes busted in the drug raid, said he had no idea the criminals may have altered the power supply to the house or that he may have been at risk in his own backyard.

Manderscheid would sometimes mow their side of the front lawn - a neighbourly gesture that may have been putting him at serious risk.

"And I'm kind of doing the neighbourly thing saying, well, you know, even though it's a strip that's kind of on their side I'll do their whole front side," he told CBC News.

"That scares me the most because what a way it would be for me to go on that case, to be electrified because someone has a grow-op."

It's a concern for residents like Sharon Cory in Cameron Heights too, where local discussions about grow op bylaws mirror safety worries.

Cory lives a couple of houses away from the alleged grow-op on Caldwell Close, where makeshift wiring and a crimped power cord can start a fire if overloaded.

"There's little kids across the street here, and people walking their dogs," Cory said. "Someone could have walked on there... so that's a scary thing."

Epcor spokesman Tim LeRiche said people who dig out a house's foundation to expose major wires, an act often tied to copper theft in the region, are making it dangerous for people other than themselves.

"We don't think there's any danger to the public but there is to the crews that have to repair the lines, and the people who are tampering with those lines."

Police have identified 42 people believed to be part of a drug-trafficking group operating in Western Canada with ties to the U.S.

Charges are expected to be laid soon, and in other cases owners have faced charges after accidental electrocution, authorities noted.

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